Welcome to Roses & Thorns. All books receive honest reviews, regardless of our sources. We are no longer accepting submissions. While the blog will remain live, I cannot continue reviewing books. My own writing is suffering from keeping up with two blogs. I will post my last review on May 29, 2017. Thank you Rose and Donna for your help, authors for the (mostly) great reading, and readers for following us.

Roses & Thorns

Sunday, June 26, 2016

A
touching and hilarious memoir by the author of Carrie and Me: A Mother Daughter Love Story, This Time Togetheris 100
percent Carol Burnett—funny, irreverent, and irresistible.

Carol
Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in
America. The Carol Burnett Show was seen each week by millions of
adoring fans and won twenty-five Emmys in its remarkable eleven-year run. Now,
in This Time Together, Carol really lets her hair down and tells one
funny or touching or memorable story after another. Reading it feels like
sitting down with an old friend who has wonderful tales to tell.

In
engaging anecdotes, Carol discusses her remarkable friendships with stars such
as Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, and Julie Andrews; the background
behind famous scenes, like the moment she swept down the stairs in her
curtain-rod dress in the legendary “Went With the Wind” skit; and things that
would happen only to Carol—the prank with Julie Andrews that went wrong in
front of the First Lady; the famous Tarzan Yell that saved her during a
mugging; and the time she faked a wooden leg to get served in a famous ice
cream emporium. This poignant look back allows us to cry with the actress
during her sorrows, rejoice in her successes, and finally, always, to laugh.

About the Author:

Since the book is an
autobiography, I was unable to find an author bio.

Review:

What
can you say about the autobiography of one of your idols? Hopefully, it lives
up to your expectations of that person. Having read Ms. Burnett’s first book, I
knew it would.

However,
her first book stopped short of her success on The Carol Burnett Show, and did
not include anecdotes about meeting (and in many cases becoming friends with)
many of her idols, her friendships with the likes of Julie Andrews and Beverly
Sills, or stories about Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle
Waggoner and the rest of the cast and crew of her marvelous variety show.Warning: don’t eat or drink anything when you
read the chapter on Tim Conway, and be sure your mouth is dry. I laughed so
hard, I choked on my own saliva.

Finally,
Ms. Burnett attended school when they still taught grammar. And she writes the
way she talks. Nothing stilted there. I put off reading This Time Together, because it wasn’t business; it was just for fun,
so I waited until I was somewhat “caught up.” And, indeed, it was fun! Thank you, Ms. Burnett.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

When
James Morrow, a social worker, first meets Kevin Flynn, he suspects the teen is
being abused. To learn more about Kevin’s home life, he gets to know the boy’s
father, Tucker, who’s a lobsterman. James is able to put his suspicions to
rest, and the two families begin to form a friendship.

When
a kid at the local recreation center dies of an overdose, Detective Maya Morrow
adds the case to the long list related to the drug problem plaguing the small
New Hampshire coastal town of Newborough. But her investigation gets her much
too close to the dangerous players.

Both
the Morrows and the Flynns are holding dark secrets, and when their lives collide,
tragedy is inevitable.

About the Author:

David Rawding has a BA
in English from The University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Fiction from
Southern New Hampshire University. He has been nominated for the Pushcart
Prize, and his short stories have been published in numerous literary journals
and magazines. David spent three years as a fly-fishing guide in Alaska, worked
several years at a non-profit for at-risk youth, was an online adjunct
professor, and has a litany of other jobs in his wake. When he’s not writing,
he enjoys traveling the world with a backpack and a fly rod.

Taking on Water is a fascinating book.
James Morrow and Tucker Flynn start out on the side of the good guys, but by the
end of the book, circumstances and other things drive them into fuzzy areas at
best, with consequences you’ll have to read to discover.

What
starts out as a pretty good page-burning thriller turns into the profile of a
psychological nightmare, a glimpse into the mind of a man as he goes mad and
goes on a killing spree. And we get to watch it from the inside out and cringe—and even cry.

You’ll
notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors
usually receive 40-50% of the net proceeds from the publisher. Editors and
cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes
& Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the
author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if
a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author
will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will
receive about $1.70-$2.10.

Download
the file from the publisher onto your computer as you would any other file.
I’ve created a folder for books on my computer, with subfolders by source
(Marketing for Romance Writers, Net Galley, Authors who find me on Kindle
lists, etc.). That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on
your computer. Some publishers send books in all digital formats. If my Kindle
breaks and my kids buy me a Nook, I won’t have to replace all of my books. If
you have a Kindle and your hubby has a Nook, you won’t have to buy separate
copies, so buying directly from the publisher can save you money.

Moving
the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any
file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your
e-reader charging chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the
file from the folder into which you’ve downloaded the book to Documents/Books
directory on your e-reader. You can move the file by highlighting it and
dragging it to the documents directory in you Kindle you want to move it to. Or
right click on it, and then left click copy or move. Or hit Control/C for copy,
Control/X for cut, and Control/V for paste.

Your
author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.